Getting On

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Priscilla Green was 73 & her husband Edward was 79. They lived in Connecticut for 30 years & their beloved housekeeper Mary McDougal had been with them for 16. Priscilla suggested they plan a rose garden, but Edward vetoed the idea. The couple toasted Mary. Priscilla was six feet tall & used to be beautiful, but was now bloated & blurred by arthritis. After three operations, she'd lost almost all of her sight & assumed she would "leave" first. But in the middle of the night on New Years Eve, Mary knocked on Priscilla's door to tell her Edward's nose was bleeding & an ambulance was on the way. Though Priscilla slept in the guest room because she couldn't walk up the stairs, this time she took her cane & went up, calling, "Edward! I'm coming!" Priscilla worried about him in the hospital, calling to find out he was in intensive care because of his age & heart condition. His absense was difficult for her. When Mary drove her to the hospital, Priscilla knew he was dying. She thought of his kindness. Edward was her second husband. She loved her first husband, Dennis, with a headlong desperation, but one afternoon she found him in the bath with one of her friends & eventually divorced him. Edward had not swept her off her feet; he waited for her & treated her like an equal. He was faithful, taking "all his baths alone." He bullied her back to life when she was ill. Now that she knew he wouldn't return, Priscilla planned her rose garden. "In the darkened room, she raised her hand above her head & opened the fingers then closed them. It was a small movement, & one that caused her no pain. She could do it easily."